The Red Rockets' Glare: Spaceflight and the Russian Imagination, 1857–1957 (Cambridge Centennial of Flight)

'Asif Siddiqi, who has already written the best books on the Soviet space effort, has now given us a wonderful exploration of the social and cultural dimensions of this effort; he has given voice to those on the periphery: the populist phenomena of utopian ideas and popular imagination.' Loren Graham, MIT and Harvard University

'This is an excellent book. Examining the roots of Soviet success in space exploration, Asif Siddiqi writes about Konstantin Tsiolkovski - a humble Russian schoolteacher who became one of the greatest dreamers in the world and changed it forever. Siddiqi writes about people who paved the road in space - the bumpy road through Stalin's GULAG toward worldwide recognition. This is the story of people who made history.' Sergei Khrushchev, Brown University

'Asif Siddiqi's book is a pathbreaking work in the history of rocketry and spaceflight and the history of Soviet science and technology. Superbly written and based on fundamentally new archival research, The Red Rockets' Glare illuminates the complex origins of spaceflight enthusiasm in Russia and the USSR in the century before the launch of Sputnik. It is destined to become the classic work on the origin of the Soviet space program.' Michael J. Neufeld, Smithsonian Institution

'Asif Siddiqi is to be commended for gathering such an impressive array of secondary sources, memoirs, and newly discovered archival materials to describe the origins and evolution of the Soviet rocketry program. This is an innovative and significant contribution to both Russian history and the history of spaceflight.' Scott Palmer, Western Illinois University

'... full of minute but fascinating detail ... easy to read.' Spaceflight